Paul Yowell’s new book, Constitutional Rights and Constitutional Design, argues that courts were not designed for the kind of moral and empirical reasoning they now routinely undertake. To consider these questions and respond to the argument of the book, Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project has solicited commentary from leading scholars and jurists.

In his recent study for Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project, Sir Noel Malcolm (All Souls College, Oxford) considers European Human Rights law and finds it wanting. In February 2018, Policy Exchange’s Judicial Power Project convened a panel discussion to address Sir Noel’s critique of European human rights law – and his robust conclusion that the UK ought to withdraw from the Convention. The panellists committed their further thoughts to writing in this commentary series.

The first of this year’s Reith lectures, given by Lord Sumption and broadcast yesterday morning, traces “Law’s Expanding Empire”, outlining how and why the domain of law, and the courts, has come to reach so widely.

On Sunday 31 March, Sir Stephen Laws and I published a paper for Policy Exchange entitled Endangering Constitutional Government: the risks of the House of Commons taking control. The paper warned that some MPs had begun to unravel the relationship between Government...

The political campaign against the UK’s immigration laws secured an important victory yesterday, with the High Court denouncing sections 20-37 of the Immigration Act 2014 as racially discriminatory – not by discriminatory intent or design but “indirectly”, by side...

Professor Richard Ekins, Head of the Judicial Power Project, has submitted evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee’s inquiry into the question of how former service personnel can be protected from the spectre of investigation and re-investigation for...

Faced with the prospect of the UK’s departure from the EU, some Britons are contemplating urgent measures, whether applying for an Irish passport or migrating to New Zealand. Nothing wrong with either, of course, but the latter is an odd reaction. After all, one of...

The guiding aim of legislatures should be to protect and promote human rights. This might seem a common sense or obvious proposition. But there are some theorists and judges who reject it, holding that human rights are the province of courts while the task of...